Dedicated IP refers to assigning a dedicated IP address to your website. The question What is dedicated IP can be answered better when it is compared with shared IP address. While shared IP address is a single IP address which is used of all the websites on a single web server, dedicated IP refers to a particular website. What makes it unique is that the address allows you to access your website just like your site’s domain name.

Why Do You Need A Dedicated IP?

There are many reasons why you may need dedicated IP:

• High Volume Web Traffic – If you have a website that drives large volume of traffic, you should have a dedicated IP which can help maintain and increase  your site loading speed and eliminate any changes that your site crashes anytime due to heavy traffic.
• SSL Certificates & Security – If you have an online store and you allow customers make purchases using their credit cards, you have to install an SSL certificate. You need to have a dedicated IP if you were to get a security certificate.
• Protection from other site activities – Having a dedicated IP means not sharing the server with other accounts (websites). Therefore, you do not have to worry about other websites running unscrupulous scripts and putting the entire server at risk.
• To boost your search engine rankings – Google gives more importance to websites with dedicated IP addresses. Especially, compared to shared IP, your dedicated IP is more likely to achieve better PageRank.
• Extending Hosting Functionality – There are many functions that can be enabled only on dedicated IP and not on shared IP, such as Anonymous FTP which allows you to use FTP programs for accessing files from your site.
• Business Identity – A dedicated IP also helps build your customers’ and prospects’ confidence in your business.

Advantages of Having a Dedicated IP

There are many advantages of having a dedicated IP rather than relying on a relatively cheaper shared IP option. The major benefits are explained as following:

More Stability

Among all other benefits, the most important is that Dedicated IP helps provide more stability. The problem with shared IP lies in their very concept – sharing a single IP address on the web for different websites has its own set of stability and security issues. If any of the other websites on the same address are blacklisted for spamming activity, it will have a direct impact on your own website. On the other hand, having a dedicated address means that the activities of other sites are not going to affect your online presence or reputation.

Businesses are constantly engaged in online marketing efforts where they are sending out emails and running other marketing campaigns. If your site is on a shared server, there is a very good chance that your site could be harmed by your IP-sharing “partners”. If any of those sites is banned or classified as spammers, your site could also get affected. This is a more common issue than most webmasters think, and most of the time they are unable to find the reason why their accounts may have been affected.

Less Downtime

Another advantage is that it helps reduce the downtime. IP addresses are constantly refreshing, and whenever this happens there is a very good chance of downtime from the server. If you have mission critical services, you cannot afford to have downtime on your site. However, this can be eliminated if you have a dedicated IP address.

SEO Benefits

Ranking higher on search engines is increasingly becoming difficult. You have to use only ethical and allowed SEO strategies. Search engines like Google will use your IP address to tell where your site is hosted. This is a crucial factor used in ranking your site within your target market. If you are hosting your site on a shared hosting plan, there are enhanced security threats and Google will usually discriminate against your site when it comes to ranking you. Security is also a major factor for search engines to rank your site.